ACRL College & Research Libraries News

College & Research Libraries News

New Publicαtions

George M. Eberhart

George M. Eberhart is associate editor of American Libraries; e-mail: geberhart@ala.org

Beyond Philadelphia: The American Revolution in the Pennsylvania Hinterland, edited by John B. Frantz and William Pencak (273 pages, October 1998), describes how Penn- sylvanians outside the capital experienced the Revolutionary War. Unlike the simplistic Pa- triot-militia-vs.-Tory-army conflict envisioned in many history texts, colonists in the interior wrestled with other forces. In Bucks County, the pacifist Quakers were pitted against pro- war Protestants; in Berks County, the German population increasingly gained strength and respectability; and on the frontier, American In- dian attacks (often encouraged by the British) posed a much greater threat than any redcoats or Hessians. A revealing look at colonial issues and trends of- ten overlooked by traditional histories. $55.00. Penn State University Press. ISBN 0-271- 01766-X.

The Last Dinosaur Book:

The Life and Times of a Cultural Icon, by W. J. T. Mitchell (321 pages, November 1998), focuses on the imagery of dinosaurs in popular culture, art, and advertising. Peppered with humorous and unusual illustra- tions, as well as quotations from such writers as Italo Calvino and Edgar Rice Burroughs, the book styles itself a “Jurassic Ark” that preserves the American obsession with the dinosaur image “from its invention in the 1840s to its emer- gence as a media superstar in global popular culture at the end of the twentieth century.” Mitchell traces the evolution of dinomania from the first “bone rush” after the Civil War to Stephen Spielberg’s T. Rex as a “totem animal of moder- nity.” The Last Dinosaur is a wild ride through history on the back of a postmodern Velociraptor. $35.00. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0-226-53204-6.

Leadership and Academic Libraries, edited by Terrence F. Mech and Gerard B. McCabe (276 pages, September 1998), brings together 19 essays on how the leadership of individual librarians contributes to change and expand- ing career opportunities for academic Librarians. Beverly Lynch and Raven Fonfa exam- ine the roots of the profession in the deeds of academic leaders of the past; Barbara Dewey, Janet Hurlbert, and three other authors out- line the role of leadership in nonmanagerial settings; and David Dowell and George Charles Newman examine career paths for library directors. $65.00. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313- 30271-5.

Libraries and Librarianship in China, by Sharon Chien Lin (241 pages, September 1998), is a comprehensive treatment of the administration and organi- zation of all types of libraries, especially in the People’s Re- public since 1949. The chapter on academic libraries describes their unprecedented growth in the late 1980s, the seminal 1981 Regulations Pertaining to University Libraries, and the slow but persistent investment in automation. $75.00. Greenwood Press. ISBN 0-313-2897-9.

Literature Lover's Book of Lists, by Judie L. H. Strouf (418 pages, September 1998), advertises itself as “serious trivia for the bibliophile,” though it falls woefully short of that designation. The book lists are usually only authors and titles with minimal description, if any, and no dates of first publication. However, they may intrigue browsing undergraduates by their variety and shortness. The section on poetic forms is useful and uncomplicated, and some of the lists show merit (such as literary faux pas, one-line descriptions of Æsop’s fables, and classics in comic format). Unfortunately, it cannot match the now-aging Good Books: A Book Lover's Companion by Steven Gilbar (Ticknor & Fields, 1982). $25.00. Prentice-Hall. ISBN 0- 7352-0017-3.

The Nature of the Book, by Adrian Johns (753 pages, October 1998), is a richly detailed examination of the rise of print culture, the philosophy of intellectual property, and the early dissemination of scientific knowledge in 17th- and 18th-century England. Though scholarly, Johns’s narrative is filled with lively anecdotes and insightful analysis. His underlying point is that what we assume to be the inviolable characteristics of a book—consistency, veracity, authority— were not necessarily the case and had to be forged by the founding fathers of print culture. The lives of a few of them are profiled here: John Streater, who founded one of the largest printing houses in London; Joseph Moxon, who saw print, design, and typography in purely mathematical terms; Sir Thomas Browne, who compiled a history of plagiarism; and the British Astronomer Royal John Flamsteed, who was one of many voices expressing an opinion on how scientific knowledge should be acquired and perpetuated. Perhaps the most engrossing chapter is on the “physiology of reading,” which examines what 17th-century men and women thought actually happened in their brains when they read. $40.00. University of Chicago Press. ISBN 0- 226-40121-9.

Wars of the Americas, by David F. Marley (722 pages, October 1998), takes an unusual approach to military chronology by restricting its scope to conflicts in the Western Hemisphere since European landfall in 1492. This leaves more room for Indian wars and lesser- known hostilities in Central and South America, such as King Philips’ War in Massachusetts, the Mexican Pastry War, the conquest of Jamaica by the British, the Riel Rebellion in Manitoba, and the Araya massacre of 1605 in Venezuela. A mere 70 pages are devoted to 20th-century military actions: only the Aleutian campaign, the Graf Spee, and the U-boat war are in scope for World War II, allowing expanded descriptions of the Mexican Revolution, the Chaco War, the Nicaraguan Civil War and other Latin American unrest, the Falklands, Grenada, Panama, and Haiti. $99.00. ABC-Clio. ISBN 0-87436-837-5. ■